


Across a Cloudy Sea

by Zdenka



Category: Take Flight - Lindsey Stirling (Music Video)
Genre: F/F, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 18:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11018976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/pseuds/Zdenka
Summary: After losing the woman she loves, Holly goes on a dream-like quest to win her back from death.





	Across a Cloudy Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minutia_R](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/gifts).



> This story is based on the video "Take Flight," by the multi-talented Lindsey Stirling. The video may be found [here](https://youtu.be/QAD0BtEv6-Q).

Holly woke to the sound of sirens. Half-asleep, she reached out to the other side of the bed.

The space beside her was empty, as it had been for a month now. She lay still, clutching her pillow.

There had been sirens in her dream too. And Claire had been there, laughing and twirling around while playing her violin. Holly groped to recall the details, but the dream was already fading, as the siren went wailing off in the distance. Slowly, she unclutched her pillow and sat up.

Why should she dream of sirens? She hadn’t even been there, when Claire--

She had imagined it, though, a rainy November day and the screech of brakes. She had been here, at home in their apartment when she got the phone call, _We’re so sorry, there’s been an accident,_ and all the bureaucratic inevitability that followed. Holly let out a shuddering breath and rubbed at her face.

Morning light was coming in through the window. The apartment had a beautiful view of the city, tall buildings stretching into the sky. She could see the streets far below; the snowplows had done their work, but snow still lay thick and white on the trees and on the bits of sidewalk that no one had shoveled.

Holly forced herself to go through her morning routine, breakfast and getting dressed and brushing her hair. She meant to sit down at her desk and work, but her eye fell on an open book, left lying on the floor. Claire’s things were still scattered around the apartment: her favorite mug on the bedside table, books in piled in untidy stacks beside her desk, pages of sheet music on the music stand and the violin in its case. Holly had picked up a few things in a desultory manner, but in a way it was comforting to have them there, as if Claire’s presence had not entirely faded from her life.

Holly craned her neck to read the words sideways. It was a book of poetry, one she had seen on Claire’s bookshelf. On an impulse, she sat down on the floor to read it.

_"He took his lyre in his hands and prayed_  
_to all the gods, but most of all to Love:_  
_‘Oh let me find her, let my hope not fail!_  
_Undaunted, I will seek the dreadful gate;_  
_the house of Hades holds no fear for me._  
_The three-fold hound who, snarling, bars the way,_  
_the sullen waters of the Stygian stream,_  
_the Furies crowned with snakes, their eyes ablaze,_  
_the plaintive cries of the unburied dead--_  
_among these horrors, I will seek my wife_  
_and bring her back, or stay with her in death.’"_

Holly bowed her head and leafed through the book, though the words blurred before her eyes. The myth was wrong, she thought angrily. It was Claire whose music could call birds to her hand or make trees lean toward her as she played, who could make flowers rise and pebbles skip about her feet. Holly would fight death for her if she could, but what power did she have to set things right?

As she turned the pages, something drifted out onto the floor: a blue flower, its petals still fresh and bright as if just plucked. Holly caught her breath. She remembered that flower and the day Claire had picked it. It was a summer day, warm with sunlight, and the two of them had gone out to the park. Claire had brought her violin. She took it out and played under a blue sky scattered with fluffy white clouds, while Holly lay at ease on the ground and breathed in the fresh green scent of the warm grass. Holly loved to watch Claire play, to see how her supple body swayed with the music, following the motions of her arm, and how her eyes lit up with delight. And sometimes there was that particular rapt look on Claire’s face that meant she was working magic.

Claire’s melody skipped and danced joyfully, and it seemed to Holly that the sunlight gathered around Claire, until motes of light sparkled upon the strings and ran down to the grass at her feet in golden streaks. “What are you doing?” she asked softly, once the piece came to an end and Claire lowered her bow.

Claire smiled. “You know how the squirrels gather acorns? I’m gathering sunlight for the winter.” She laid down her violin in its case and, with a swooping motion, plucked a single blue flower from the spot where she had stood to play. “Look!” she said. She held it out for Holly to touch, and Holly, marveling, felt the soft petals giving off warmth like a small lantern.

“For winter?” Holly asked teasingly. “And what about now?”

“Now?” Claire echoed, her voice going breathless. She dropped the flower on her violin case and knelt down beside Holly, reaching to grasp Holly’s shoulders. Holly pulled her into a kiss. Laughing, they tumbled onto the grass together. Claire’s warm weight pressed against her, the swell of her breasts, the jut of her hipbones. Claire kissed her throat, and Holly let her head fall back; suddenly dizzy, she felt as if she could fall upward into the blue of the sky.

After a little while they broke apart, but only to walk home, hand in hand. Holly closed the apartment door behind them, Claire set down her violin case, and they went to bed. With her hands twined in the dark waves of Claire’s hair and Claire’s mouth sweet against hers, Holly had completely forgotten about the blue flower. But it seemed Claire had kept it.

Sunlight for the winter-- Holly swallowed and blinked against tears. Now winter was here, and Claire was not. But the flower . . . would it still hold that summer warmth? Holding her breath, Holly reached out to touch it.

The flower wilted at once, drooping on its stem. Holly gave a sob and ran frantically to find water, cradling the flower as if it might disintegrate.

Holly sat at her desk and tried to work, though she found her thoughts drifting. The room grew dark around her before she noticed; dusk fell early at this time of year. She glanced at the blue flower in its glass of water. She had hoped it might revive, but it still drooped sadly.

 _Oh let me find her--_ The words of the poem echoed in her mind, and she could not stop herself from reaching out to touch the flower again. _Let me find her--_

If the room weren’t so dark, she would not have seen the faint golden glint that sparked from its petals. And then golden light welled up under the crack in the apartment door, as if there were sunlight on the other side and not a dim hallway or the dullness of a winter night. And from the other side came a snatch of music, the sound of Claire’s violin. Holly threw her coat around her shoulders, snatched up the flower, and ran to open the door before the light could disappear.

The familiar hallway opened up and out, the ceiling falling away upward. All around her, staircases ran up, down, upside-down and sideways in a bewildering tangle. And at the end of every staircase, a memory. Spinning around slowly, Holly saw herself at eight years old wobbling on ice skates for the first time, as a college student bent in concentration over a book in the library, on her first date with Claire, rowing on the lake near her parents’ house on a windy day. Holly shook her head to clear it and went onward, her feet landing on each wooden step with a dull thud. It was the only sound in the room; each of the memories was silent, Holly’s child or adult self going through her motions like the image in a mirror.

A gleam of sunlight . . . There was Claire silently playing the violin, a blue flower at her feet. Holly caught her breath. Could she go there, become lost in that memory and live in it forever? She stood still for a moment, hesitating. The identical flower in her hand gave a spark of gold. “No,” Holly said fiercely. “That wasn’t what I wanted.” If she chose that path, Holly might remain in the comforting illusion of memory, but Claire would still be lost. She raised her head. There, across the hall, another door shining with golden light, and the faint sound of a violin. She looked up and down, but she could see no path to reach it among the multitude of staircases. She took a deep breath and jumped, flinging herself through space.

She landed safely in a crouch, catching herself on sideways steps. She scrambled to her feet and pulled open the door, plunging through without hesitation.

Holly rocked on her feet as the world tilted. She was standing upright on the side of her apartment building, her feet on the brick wall. She tensed, expecting to fall to the street far below. But the brick was solid beneath her feet. Wondering, she walked a few steps along that strange path. A sideways world? Well, why not? Her own world was the one that was wrong, she thought stubbornly. Claire’s death was a mistake. She would go sideways and crosswise through all the possible universes if she had to, until she found the one that was right.

Gusts of wind blew around her, tugging at her hair and coat. Holly tried to brush her hair back out of her face, and a stronger gust of wind snatched the blue flower from her hand. It spun upward through the air. Holly gasped and frantically chased after it. She caught hold of the flower again just at the very edge of the building, what should have been the roof, and stood teetering for a moment before she found her balance.

Ahead of her was only a sheer drop into empty air. The clouds stretched ahead of her like a sea. She must continue, but how?

A boat, she thought at last. If that was a sea, she needed a boat. It must be well-built, solid and strong enough to hold her. Gripping the flower tightly, she imagined the boat she needed in every detail, as carefully as if she were building a miniature model like the one she kept on her bookcase. When she opened her eyes, the boat was there, bobbing just below the level of the apartment building as if resting at a dock. A wooden oar lay across it.

Holly stepped carefully into the boat, still half-afraid that the bottom would drop away and she would fall through. But it held. She raised the oar and pushed off.

The sky was blue, as blue as water, and a refreshing breeze blew around her as she rowed. Holly smiled to herself and made sure the blue flower was securely tucked into her coat. She had no way of keeping track of time, but she rowed until her hands grew sore and her muscles ached. Still she kept going, guided by the gentle press of the flower against her chest. But to Holly’s dismay, the sky began to darken around her. The boat pitched and shuddered, as if caught in a stormy sea. Rain poured from the clouds until her coat was dripping wet, and her bangs hung in front of her face in sodden clumps. A flash of lightning blazed near her -- what would happen if lightning struck her boat here, among the clouds? Desperately, she rowed onward, struggling against the storm.

The sound of a violin again, but a different melody, with eerie harmonies beneath. Holly knew this one, she had heard Claire play it, though she could not recall the name. The boat shuddered and came to a sudden halt. Holly pushed wet hair out of her eyes. A dark-cloaked figure loomed in the clouds ahead of her, grasping her boat’s prow. Holly strained to make out features, but she could not see the face beneath the dark hood. And then the figure spoke, and Holly remembered with a sudden chill that the piece was called “Death and the Maiden.”

“Turn back.” The voice was soft but carrying; Holly heard it in her bones as much as her ears.

She swallowed and clutched her oar more tightly. “No,” she said. “I’m going to find Claire and bring her back.”

“It is forbidden.”

“I told you, I’m not going back!”

“All mortal creatures must die,” the voice continued in its deep alto. “If you will not cease from your quest--”

“No--”

“Then you will die, even as she did.” The hand gripping the boat’s prow jerked it abruptly upward. The boat tilted wildly, and Holly was thrown out into the stormy sea. She clutched vainly at air as she fell; the boat and its oar fell away in a different direction. The blue flower slipped away, and this time she could not catch it.

Holly closed her eyes, though she could still see the harsh flash of lightning through her eyelids. She would not die here, she would not fail! It was hard to concentrate with the rain soaking her and bursts of wind spinning her around, with the sickening feeling of falling. She needed to get down to earth, but slowly, safely. A ladder, she thought desperately. She pictured it: the wooden rungs, its solidity, the way it would feel under her hands--

And the ladder was there, and she was no longer falling. Holly let out a long breath. She slowly loosened her white-knuckled grip on the top rung and climbed down, down, below the layer of the clouds, while the storm grew less and the thunder died away in the distance.

Her booted feet touched the ground. Her bangs were wet with rain, and water was still dripping into her eyes, but the grass around her was dry. There was a range of mountains in the distance; Holly turned her face toward them and started walking, in the light of the setting sun.

A small yellow dandelion was growing stubbornly amid the grass of the field. Holly smiled and bent down to touch it. The field had grown dark around her, but there was light in the distance, the last of the sun’s rays glimmering over the edge of the mountains.

Holly closed her eyes and opened them again. No, not all was dark; what she had thought was the last sunlight was a cluster of lights like golden lamps. She walked toward them in the darkness and the mist. At last she stood below them and found they were not lamps at all, but living creatures.

They hung suspended in the air, or darted back and forth, and she could hear them twittering softly to each other. Holly raised her hands in delight to cup one of the living lights in her hands; it rested there for a moment, warm and sparkling, before slipping back into the free air.

And then she was in the midst of them. They flew around her, dipping and rising, like golden birds made of light. “Why have you come here?” they asked in high-pitched voices, their words overlapping each other in chorus. “What do you want? What do you want do you want do you want?”

“I want Claire back!” she almost shouted. The light-creatures all fell silent at once. Holly took a deep breath and let it out again. “I want to find my way back to Claire,” she said more quietly, “to the world where I didn’t lose her. It was just a stupid accident, a car skidding on the wet road -- it didn’t need to happen. I want to find her again. I want her to live.”

“What will you give,” they asked, darting around her, “will you give will you give?” Holly hesitated. Did they want her own life in exchange? Her eyesight, her ability to draw?

There was a glint of golden light at her feet. There was the blue flower, rising from the ground amid the grass. Holly pulled it in a single quick motion; it came readily into her hand. She held it out to them. One of the creatures swooped down to take it from her; they tossed it back and forth from one to another until Holly was dizzy with trying to follow it.

The light-creatures swung downward again and soared around her. It was like a dance, she thought, and it almost seemed she could hear music, falling from the motions of their wings. “Look up,” they said one after another, “look up look up look up!”

Holly looked.

In the distance, there was a plain wooden door, standing by itself in the middle of the grass. The door to her apartment. From inside, she could hear the sound of Claire’s violin, the notes flying fast and brilliant.

Holly slowly walked toward it. When she reached the door, she stopped, nervously pushing her hood back. She grasped the doorknob and pulled the door open.

It was her apartment, everything as it was: the early light of morning, the bookshelf, her desk with its jars of pencils and paintbrushes, the book of poetry lying open on the floor.

There was a blur of motion behind her. It was the golden light-creatures; they gathered together and joyfully streaked through the open door into the room. For a moment her eyes were dazzled; she blinked to clear them, and then she could see the blue flower, fresh and unwithered, sitting in a glass vase on her desk.

Holly went in and closed the door carefully behind her. She went to the desk and touched the flower, half expecting it to wither. But it remained fresh. It was cool to the touch, only a flower, but Claire’s violin was still playing in the next room. She raised her head.

“Claire?” Her voice came out tremulous and soft. The violin played on, notes skipping up the scale. “Claire!”

The music stopped. Holly went down the hall to the bedroom, almost running. She stopped in the doorway.

Claire stood in the middle of the room, still holding her violin and bow. “Holly? I didn’t hear you come in.”

Holly moved toward her. Claire set down her instrument carefully on the bed, and Holly flung her arms around her with a sob. Claire was warm and solid in her embrace. It was too real to be a dream; she could hear the radiator hissing and the sound of birds chirping from outside the window.

“Holly? Is something wrong? Are you crying?”

“No,” Holly said shakily. “Nothing’s wrong at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> The poem that Holly reads is a version of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.
> 
> It's not necessary for understanding the story, but if you're curious, “Death and the Maiden” is a [song](https://youtu.be/DgvM0g4fGBE) by Franz Schubert and also a [string quartet](https://youtu.be/7daW-UBBdKs) that he wrote using a theme from the song.


End file.
